Circus of Horrors
by Dacica Dracones
Summary: It dawned on him, while he was aimlessly wandering around the dark corridors of that damned place, that fate had dealt him an incredibly bad hand. Eddie Gluskin/Waylon Park
1. Silenzio

It dawned on him, while he was aimlessly wandering around the dark corridors of that damned place, that fate had dealt him an incredibly bad hand. Sure, he could have made it so much easier on himself, had he kept his mouth shut, turned a blind eye to everything and moved on with his life, but the matter kept clawing at his conscience; he cursed himself and that place and Jeremy Blaire for the millionth time that day.

Blaire. That motherfucker deserved to burn in hell for an eternity and another one after that. He vaguely wondered just how inhumane one person could become for a business, or for money. And it wasn't just him. The entire Murkoff Corporation was made out of scum like Blaire, from managers to doctors, their dehumanization sentencing the already doomed patients/prisoners, thrown and forgotten inside the asylum by their families, to an even grimmer fate. It was the complete abandonment that the Murkoff Corporation, and, by default, Blaire, counted on. People from the outside didn't care, and those inside didn't dare to "tell stories outside of class", as Blaire put it. He learned that the hard way, his jaw still stiff and most likely wearing a boot shaped bruise.

The dizziness still hadn't gone away, the images that were put in front of him on the projector still floating in front of his eyes, now and then, more and more faded every time but still vivid enough to make him want to outstretch his arm and try to grab at them. He tried rubbing at his eyes, but only managed to distort the image of the sinister hallway even more; any attempt would have been futile anyway, he had realized some time ago that the pictures were not imprinted onto his retina, but onto his brain.

The silence was also becoming unbearable; "it's scarier when nothing happens." He said to himself and then laughed out loud at the silliness. The quietness was incredibly profound, making his ears ring, which was driving him insane. Either this part of the asylum was more secluded; the darkness made it almost impossible for him to know exactly where he was; or, and that particular thought made his hair stand on end, there was no one left alive.

When he first broke out of his cell, the one where Murkoff had tried to force its filthy paws inside his mind, hell seemed to have broken loose throughout the entire asylum, the patients finally releasing their pent-up anger on the staff. Beaten. Ripped to shreds. Waylon had felt an enormous wave of satisfaction wash over him, before he realized he wasn't quite safe either. By an immense luck, if it could be called luck, given the situation, he was dressed as a patient, and, ironically, that saved him, for the moment. If he hadn't been scared out of his mind, he would have grinned to himself; Blaire had somehow done him a favor, keeping him alive.

Later on, though, he was wishing those patients had just cracked open his skull. If the screams for help and the mad ramblings of the patients had been unnerving, this poignant silence was even worse. He wanted to make some sort of noise, to bang his fist against a wall, to talk to himself, to make even the tiniest sound just to make sure he was still alive, and this entire hell wasn't just his imagination.

And then there was the smell. The metallic stench was so deeply impregnated past his nostrils that he was sure he'd still be feeling the nauseating smell for months after he'll get out of there. If he'll ever get out of there. The worst thing was, he was getting used to it; he had thrown up once or twice, but then the smell became a part of the ambiance. So did the mangled bodies and the occasional leg or arm, long separated from their owners.

He tried to convince himself it was all fake, like the ride through the Haunted Mansion that he took with his father when he was a kid. The scenery before him was terrifyingly real, however, and impossible to remain impassive to.

The sound of a voice ripped him out of the thoughts that had been tormenting him for what seemed like hours; he had no idea how long it has been, it could have been only a few minutes. He stopped, holding his breath. There was more than just one voice; he distinguished a female voice, amongst others. They seemed to be coming from somewhere beneath his feet, on a lower floor level. He didn't dare to move, listening carefully and trying to decipher what they were saying. It was very difficult to understand a word, despite him kneeling on the wooden floor and bending until his ear was pressed against the wet surface.

He didn't care if they were friendly or hostile, doctor or patient, they were human and that was all that mattered to him right now.

They were arguing about something; and moving at the same time. He got back to his feet and tried to guess where they were going. He only managed to take two steps; the wooden boards suddenly made a terrifying sound, snapping in the middle and giving way. The water, probably coming from a broken faucet in a bathroom, had been absorbed by the wood until saturation, making it incapable of sustaining the weight of a human male. For a moment, he was worried that his leg would get stuck, but the hole widened considerably, and he crashed through the floor, falling on what appeared to be a bookshelf. Pieces of wood rained down on him and the pain in his leg and ribs made his vision blurry.

Someone shouted something, but his mind was sluggish and, despite his efforts to stay awake, he blacked out.


	2. Bête Noire

He woke up to the sound of wood creaking under bare feet, sound which caused a jolt of electricity to run through his nerves, making him jump to his feet. The sudden movement knocked books and pieces of wood across the floor, which slid away with a scraping sound; the noise made the other man stop pacing. Silence met his ears once again.

Waylon froze. His entire body tensed, shaking slightly with both fear and anticipation; a horrible feeling that somebody was watching him settled in. The man had sensed his presence and went still, listening, both of them waiting for the other to make their move; in Waylon's weary mind, they resembled two feral cats, ready to rip each other to pieces. Jump at each other's throats. Waylon considered attacking first, but his mind deemed the idea insane just a few seconds later. He wouldn't stand a chance. He didn't even know where that thought came from; it was either some sort of survival instinct or that place was starting to get to him.

If anything, the entire asylum was the lurking predator, and he was the defenseless and juicy prey.

He resorted to waiting and trying hard to muffle his shaky breath. He expected the other to grab him and drag him to his inevitable demise any minute now. It made him almost angry that the man seemed to be taking his time, prolonging his state of anxiety. A dull ache in his jaw made him realize he had been clenching his teeth the entire time.

Minutes passed and the darkness remained quiet. Despite not knowing if the man was really gone or just hiding somewhere, ready to pounce, he dared to move. He felt vulnerable, sitting in the middle of that large space in a pile of broken furniture, and he scurried closer to the nearest wall, suddenly becoming aware of the pain in his side.

Each deep intake of air brought a sharp pain to his ribs; he felt them, gingerly, biting his lips to keep any wince or groan from escaping. His fingers brushed against the bone, looking for the dents he was hoping he'd never find. When his wish was granted, he allowed himself to relax just a little; a broken rib would have severely slowed him down, making him an even easier prey than he already was.

Somewhere to his left, a light shone. He stared at the dim flicker for a while, still breathing heavily from both pain and fear. He urged his body to move, but his muscles seemed to have ceased listening to his brain. Now he could register the sound of water dripping, from the hole that he fell through, as well as from other two or three places; the entire ceiling was going to cave in, eventually. The asylum was rotting from the inside.

The gruesome image of himself caught and crushed under debris that had entered his mind was enough to make him move again, and he crawled towards the light like a wingless moth. After about two meters of staggering and holding his side, his path was blocked by a large bookshelf, impossible to move by himself. The gap between the wall and the shelf was small, and only allowed Waylon to squeeze through sideways, with some difficulty. He gritted his teeth at the discomfort created by his bruised ribs; the wood scraped against his bare legs.

He was almost on the other side when the sleeve of his shirt got caught into a nail, and ripped with a loud noise; a book fell from the shelf and hit him in the head, and, despite all his efforts to remain quiet, the sudden blow made him curse under his breath.

Something shifted in front of him. His eyes widened and a throaty shout escaped his mouth when a human head popped up extremely close to him. A horribly disfigured, yet human face. The man's expression mirrored his own: terror, and an ardent desire to remain unnoticed.

"Will you be quiet?" His voice was shaking. His hands were shaking as well, although he was trying to hide it by gripping the wooden shelf tightly. "He'll hear us." Waylon glued himself to the wall behind him, his heart pounding wildly against his ribcage. "The man downstairs. Very bad. Very bad…"

His voice cracked and he disappeared behind the shelf, leaving Waylon to scramble out of the tiny space, tripping and falling over in the process. He gasped and gulped, eyes scanning the darkness for the other man, but he found nothing. His words latched themselves onto his brain. Whoever 'the man downstairs' was, he was clearly bad news. Bad enough to reduce a grown man to a trembling mess. He squeezed his eyes shut until bright colors exploded on the back of the lids; it was best not to think about it. Had he dwelled on all the horrors he'd seen, he would have lost his mind a long time ago.

The light was shining through a hole in the wall, which connected the room Waylon was currently in to a similar one. He slipped inside, jumping slightly at the sight of his own shadow; fear had seeped into his bone marrow. The man's words still raked his brain, against his efforts to push them away.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he heard voices. People talking, three or four of them. A woman's voice. The people from earlier, before he crashed through the floor and into this brand new piece of hell. And like earlier, they were arguing.

"Grow some hair on your pecker, Timmy, then we can talk about girls."

Footsteps. He rushed out of the light and pressed himself against the wall, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

"I hear something I swear." The same voice. His legs felt like cotton, knees knocking together. 'Don't stay in one place', he said to himself. 'Don't let them catch you'. His mind ruled out the possibility of them being friendly, or at least scared out of their minds like the man before, and himself, was. He heard one of them walking with long strides, most likely looking for the source of the noise.

"Could it be that we have a visitor?" Another voice. Just as close to him as the other one was.

"But that's just perfect." And another one.

"He could be our goat." Trying hard to ignore the dull ache in his side that still bothered him, Waylon crouched and crawled under two planks that stuck out of the wall.

"We need a goat." The woman's voice was right next to him, on the other side of a shelf. He held his breath, waiting for her shadow to glide past him.

"You want to give him to Gluskin."

Gluskin. Gluskin. He felt like he'd heard that name before, or was it just his imagination? It wasn't exactly a common name, but he couldn't associate a face with it. It did, however, have a bad sound to it, like a serial killer's name mentioned on television.

"I don't want to get Gluskin's attention. He'll hurt us." There it was. The same fear lingering in his voice. The same as the other man. That Gluskin; the man downstairs. He wondered, how crazed and sadistic a man can be, to make people with so little judgement left fear him so much.

It was different than earlier, though. While the first man tried to stay as far as possible from the source of his distress, these people, or at least some of them, tried to get close. Feed him so he won't eat them instead. Different approaches to the same problem.

"No sense in pulling a mad dog's tail."

Waylon pulled himself up to his feet with great difficulty, his ribs protesting. He stumbled, and suddenly collided with something hard and icy cold, which started to dangle back and forth. He caught a glimpse of the object he struck and, despite himself, he screamed; the hanged man's eyes bulged out of his skull, tongue swollen and sticking out of his mouth. Behind him, hurried footsteps. Glancing back, he saw a single silhouette, a man, holding a cleaver tightly in his hand. The blade gleamed into the dim light threateningly.

"There he is! Get him!"

Without thinking twice, Waylon ran the opposite direction, dashing towards the nearest door. He heard the man, hot on his heels. 'Where are the others?' The fear of being ambushed made him speed up, adrenaline once again erasing all the pain from his body. Crashing through the door and slamming it, he found himself into a long hallway with no windows and pools of blood littering the broken tiles. He stopped to catch his breath and listened. The sound of the man hitting the door with his shoulder made him jump.

The other end of the corridor was engulfed in darkness, but Waylon sprinted towards it anyway; he heard the door break behind him, an amalgam of voices reaching his ears. Another glance back. It was just the man with the cleaver. Realization hit him hard. There were no others. There was no woman, he should have known, there never had been any women in the asylum ever since Murkoff reopened it. The man was sick. Delusional. And madly afraid of someone. The man downstairs. He didn't have much time to dwell upon his discovery, however.

The darkness masked the stairs very well; Waylon stepped on air and his entire body was propelled forward, falling down the steps into the blackness below.


	3. Omen

Air got knocked out of his lungs as he struck the cold and unforgiving ground. He wrapped his arms around his midsection, struggling to bring oxygen back into his system and to blink away the blinding lights that danced in front of his eyes. He was lying on his back, he realized; nausea washed over him, but the only thing his stomach managed to produce was hot acid that burned his throat. He could hear his own gasps and pants; uncontrollable by that point; but the sound was dulled, as if water had clogged his ears.

The pain wasn't just occasional stabs to his ribs anymore; it took over his whole body, hot and searing, fogging his vision and making his ears ring. His head fell, heavy, on the floor and he swallowed several times, trying in vain to tame the burning in his gut. He hadn't realized, until now, how hungry he was, and how much his throat had dried up.

The newfound sensations of hunger and thirst were what drove him to raise up, despite the protests of that small part of his brain which had found the coldness of the wooden boards comforting. Vending machines. He had walked past vending machines so many times, but grabbing something from them had never occurred to him. Set on escaping, and fast, his brain had perceived the packages of food and bottles of water as mere dead weight that would've hindered him in his mad race for an escape. He cursed himself for not thinking ahead; there was nothing he could do now, the machines, as well as the refrigerators in the kitchens were probably empty. The horrific images of dead bodies with their intestines clawed out and bite marks on their arms and necks supported that theory. It was often hunger that turned animals completely savage, and man was no different. Waylon felt his stomach do another somersault and he forced himself to move, to keep his mind busy with something.

He reached the bottom of the stairs, suddenly remembering about his pursuer. The multiple tonalities of his voice rang through his head; it must have been terrible, losing his mind. His reality warping and bending around him, all that he knew and was familiar with shifting and changing and throwing him into a different world in which he had no other choice but to adapt. The thought of himself overcome by madness made him shudder, and he started to recite the multiplication table in his head just to make sure he wasn't losing his grip on this reality; no matter how cruel it had been with him.

He heard nothing from above him; was the man gone? For some reason, he didn't pursue him downstairs. He must have seen him crash to the ground and assumed he was dead.

'I'm gonna keep crashing and crashing until I finally reach Hell.' His mind told him.

Hell. Downstairs. His blood ran cold and he scrambled up the steps, slipping and nearly smashing his nose. The realization had hit him like a sledgehammer in his temple, bringing bile up his gullet again. Another terrified voice echoed through his mind. "The man downstairs. Very bad. Very bad."

Bad. Bad. The word remained stuck, blaring like a broken radio. His outstretched hands met something solid; he pushed against it, losing his breath once again. Someone, no doubt the man with the cleaver, had toppled a rather large piece of furniture, most likely a wardrobe, over the top of the stairs. The huge wooden box got stuck, effectively blocking his path. Waylon could no longer control the trembling of his hands as he pressed them against the wood, praying God and all the Seraphim in heaven that it would move.

It didn't, and another scary thought crossed Waylon's mind. He never heard the wardrobe being pushed down. How long had he stayed there on the floor, blinded and deafened by the unmerciful pain? How long had he been there, on display, for anyone to take? He found himself zoning out while staring at the hard surface that kept him from walking on a higher floor level, and shook his head vigorously, enough to make himself a bit dizzy. Staying there and waiting was not an option; he walked back down the stairs, his eyes barely registering some contours in the darkness.

Sewing machines. He had heard that the asylum had a vocational block, but he had never actually been there. Knowing where he was wasn't helping him that much. He didn't know his way around this part of the building, how far he was from the exit, or if the path to an eventual exit hadn't already been blocked. Some walls had caved in and covered doors and passages that led outside; like the asylum itself was trying very hard to keep them trapped inside. Like cattle in a slaughterhouse. He had, at some point, spent some time staring out a shattered window at the ground three floors below and considering jumping. As delightful as getting out of the building sounded, doing so with his legs broken and no other means of transport was quite problematic. He had then forced himself to walk away from the window and remove the sight of the narrow road that left the main gates and led to safety from his mind. He will find a way out, he had promised himself.

And the more he tried, the deeper he went into the heart of that cursed place, it seemed. He walked blindly, hitting his knees and toes against the tables that held the sewing machines. Somewhere ahead, a lightbulb attached to a long cord dangled left and right from the ceiling, making the shadows dance and stretch.

He caught a human silhouette out of the corner of his left eye and he jumped, ready to make a run for it, but a second glance made him stay in his spot. On a headless mannequin stood a dress, a long dress that was most likely white under the grime and the speckles of blood that had stained it. A long, flowing dress.

A wedding gown, Waylon realized. He took a few steps closer, slowly reaching out to touch the material. Silk? It looked weird, out of place. The stillness of its shadow made Waylon tense; the lightbulb had stopped dangling. What made it move in the first place? Had it been a draft or had someone touched it before, making it swing like a pendulum that ticked the seconds away from his life.

Waylon backed away from the dress; a dirty, corrupted symbol of purity and innocence. How can something so beautiful emanate so much dread? Like someone died wearing it.

"Stop it!" He said harshly, under his breath. First sign of madness, talking to yourself. He rubbed at his temples, and turned his back to the gown; the feelings of paranoia and unsafety made him glance several times over his shoulder, expecting the harmless piece of material to attack him at any moment. He resorted to walking backwards, never taking his eyes off the dress, while his mind kept insisting that he was being ridiculous. He walked like that until he could no longer see it, but the image remained burned onto his retina, refusing to go away.

He was back in the darkness, but it felt safer, comforting even. He didn't know what to make of that dress. What kind of person would spent so much time making it; clearly the asylum did not have such a piece of clothing lying around; just to leave it to decay. Or maybe use it for a less than holy, twisted version of its real purpose. He found himself lingering and scolded himself for almost giving up on moving forward, in fear of what awaited him there. But he had to get out, and cowering in a corner wasn't going to help him much.

The sewing machines were gone, replaced by sturdy shelves. He couldn't have already gotten out of the vocation block; in a moment of panic, he thought he had walked back to where he fell down the stairs. Wandering around a place for too long greatly increased the chances of running into someone he didn't want to.

He spotted a double door just two meters ahead of him. The glass was long gone and it had been replaced by chain wire mesh, bent slightly towards him. Somebody had leaned into it from the other side. To do what? Under what circumstances? Consumed by terror, trying to break it and escape. Or chasing after someone else, desperately trying to catch them and…

Stop. Stop it. He scratched vigorously at his head, imploring it to stop thinking. Lucidity had become his worst enemy. He'd have been better off if he had lost his mind. Lost contact with all that surrounded him.

Taking a deep breath, he approached the door. Someone went through the trouble of installing the net after the glass had been broken, yet nothing blocked the door from the other side. Closing his eyes and wrapping his hand around the doorknob, he pushed. It didn't budge, not even a millimeter. He pushed again and again, hearing the lock rattle but not giving in. Sighing, he opened his eyes, and jumped violently at the sight in front of him.

First thing he saw was his eyes, the blueness contrasting with the blood that caked his face; awfully scarred, like worms had eaten away at it. And then, the suit. Suit made out of patches of different materials sewn together quite well. And then, the man's grin. Wide and lewd. Waylon scrambled away from the net when his bloodstained fingers wrapped around it, trying to reach him. The wire bent further and Waylon felt his stomach churn again. He watched as the man made a show out of licking his lips and pressing closer to the net; Waylon begged divinity that it won't break.

"Darling!"


	4. Deranged

**I'm really sorry for the delay, I had moved to Bucharest last week and I hadn't been able to hear myself think ever since.**

* * *

With those piercing blue eyes boring holes into his skull, Waylon found himself simply frozen, unable to react. The term of endearment had reached his ears but failed to get through his to cortex; the chain link mesh let out a quiet moan, bending under the man's weight. His fingers gripped it tightly; the nails were dirty, copper with dried blood and Waylon noticed for the first time that he wore some sort of fingerless gloves and that his bare wrists and the white sleeves that covered his forearms were splattered with the same rust colored liquid.

Suddenly, the net was freed from his clutch and he turned right, disappearing from Waylon's sight. His absence was what made him snap out of his state of reverie and frantically scan the small fraction of the room that was visible behind the door; the same feeling he'd have losing track of a fat, ugly spider in his house, amplified a million times. Where is he? Where is he? He hoped there was no way the man could reach him, that the heavens have finally heard his prayers, but at the same time he knew it was all in vain. He was far too deep into the fiery pits of hell for heaven to hear him.

To his right, there was a wall, and the only door was blocked by a large table wearing a dark stain in the middle; Waylon could see it through the foggy, but somehow still intact glass. He could break it; he bit his lip, looking for some sort of tool he could use to do so; and crawl across the dirty surface into the corridor behind it. It would make noise, though. Noise that could lead the man straight to him. The silence around him began pressing more and more insistently upon his temples, and he suddenly became aware that he was breathing too loudly.

He had to go back to where he came from, back to the sewing machines. Back to the wedding dress. He swallowed around the lump in his throat, walking carefully along the wall like a frightened mouse. Something gave off a green and very faint shimmer, but he couldn't see what. Had that light been there before, he couldn't remember. His entire journey through the asylum was blurring, all that he had seen or heard or felt melting together; once in a while he remembered something vivid, and usually unsettling. He remembered the hanged man. He remembered a guard standing in a chair, still clutching the gun in his stiff hand, on the wall behind him a brilliant red splatter.

Suicide seemed like a rational solution now. He shook his head, trying to drive away the thought of taking one of those sharp wooden splinters from the battered shelves and plunging it into his stomach. He couldn't. He had to get out. Had to get back to his wife and children. The possibility of seeing them again was all he's got, and he clung to it like a drowning man clings to his lifering.

The green light extinguished, his heart jumping in his throat again. His first instinct was to crouch on the floor, flattening his back against the cold brick. Heavy footsteps echoed and regret started to flood him; why didn't he just break the glass and make a run for it? A split-second decision was going to seal his fate. A split second, that's all the time he was given to make a decision that will either kill him, then or there, or just postpone his demise until God knows when; as much as he hated admitting it, the chance of walking out of that place was getting slimmer with every second, every minute that flew by. The thought of never seeing his family again gutted him; anxiety made him wring his hands. Skin rubbing against skin was all he could hear now, and the footsteps were gone. Had they even been real?

He didn't dare look, and his breath was getting shakier and shakier; the horrible prospect of not being able to trust his senses was terrifying him. He would no longer know what was real and what was not, he would jump at the sight of his own shadow and hide from things that were not really there. He's seen men ripped in half, and yet madness was what he feared the most. Becoming one of them. The cannibal in the kitchens, who had tried to cook him alive because he was starving, the nose-less giant that ripped heads off to 'establish order'. They broke. Irreparably. Their fate was grimmer to Waylon than that of those who died. Most of them deserved it. Doctors, guards. They did die horribly. Gutted, drained of blood, head bashed in, it was awful indeed, but not as awful as snapping, and hurting people who had never laid a hand on you for a mere fixation of your unstable mind. They'd never fully comprehend the damage they were causing; they survived, but at what cost?

The real victims; it wasn't those corpses still wearing tattered doctor outfits. And how will it affect him? Will it reduce him to a blabbering, shivering mess ignored by others, or turn him into a savage? Will he slice a corpse and eat it, when he will no longer be able to withstand his hunger? Will he slice a man's throat just for some new-found pleasure of seeing blood trickle?

Or was he thinking too far ahead? Maybe he won't live to see himself lose it.

Loud footsteps made him jump violently.

"Did I frighten you? I'm awfully sorry, I didn't mean to." His blood ran cold, the voice was dangerously close to him. He pressed himself further into the wall; his mind was empty. No more praying. If he was to die, then so be it. He closed his eyes.

'Just get this over with.' For a moment, nothing happened. But then a large hand grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him up to his feet. The man was taller than him, shoulders broad and arms thick; Waylon felt his own shoulders sag and head drop, trying to make himself as small as possible in front of him. He brought his arms in front of his chest, in a weak attempt to protect himself. The man's bloodstained hands wrapped around his wrists tenderly; bile threatened to choke him.

"It's okay. Let me see you." His voice was soft, almost comforting. His right hand left his wrist, and two fingers gripped his chin, pushing his head up. Half of his face was mangled, one blue eye threatening to spill out of its socket. He saw the bow tie at his neck briefly. Another matter was wrecking his brain, though.

Why did the man look familiar?


End file.
